21 July—Donald Trump’s latest boast is that he took a bullet for democracy. Can there be any doubt, then, that this monumentally great man is a patriot and a superhero who selflessly puts his life on the line for America and Americans? So he’ll be milking that one as long as he thinks it will impress and attract impressionable voters. And he’ll also be milking the equally ludicrous revelation that the would-be-wannabe-assassin’s bullet grazed his ear rather than going through his thick skull (and very stable genius brain) only thanks to divine intervention.

Of course, the motivation and discharge of slopshooter Thomas Crooks’s famously misaimed bullet would have been by divine intervention, too, unless God had been sleeping on the job at any given time. Does God sleep? Ever? In fact, does God do anything besides what God does? And just how anthropomorphic is God anyway? But this isn’t the time for pilpuls or a disquisition or sermon on purely theological matters.

Still, just what is God supposed to do?

Nor is this the time to rehash any of the thousands of Donald Trump’s other self-aggrandizing zingers. Why bother? They’re common knowledge and even most of his MAGA minions don’t take most of his hyperbole at all seriously and prefer to regard his obvious prevarication as no more than what all politicians do to get and stay elected.

And of course they’re right. It’s the name of the game, after all. It’s just that Trump does it so much better. Tell people what they want to hear and they’ll believe you. That’s the essence of con games—short for confidence games. Confidence is trust, belief. So the purpose of con games is duping the marks.

Like it or not—and sad to say—that’s precisely what politics is all about . . .